


Mirror

by HannahLydia



Series: Constants and Variables - Vignettes [4]
Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Burial at Sea, F/M, Feelings are implied but there's no real content, Mid-Canon, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 02:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15962303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannahLydia/pseuds/HannahLydia
Summary: A short vignette in which Elizabeth regards Bookerstock and the confliction he stirs within her.





	Mirror

It physically hurts to look at him.  
Whenever Elizabeth tries - blue eyes subtly darting to the chiselled lines of his face - it’s like running into a wall at high speed, face-first, crushing the air right out of her lungs. Every glance is another moment in which she relives The Truth, just as it had come to her the instant the siphon fell in a blast of white light.

> _He’s Zachary Comstock.  
>  No. He’s Booker DeWitt._

Somehow, this man is both. And bizarrely neither.

For the last hour he has been pretending to ignore her for the most part, acting as if he’s entirely used to her presence. And yet, despite that, he’s been catching glimpses of her often, looking at her from head to toe when he thinks she isn’t looking. She can’t imagine what he’s thinking, and she doesn’t care to. 

When Elizabeth spots that his attention is drawn elsewhere, she examines him at a cold, stoic distance.  
His hair is side-swept just like Booker’s, and yet for all it’s similarity it’s as silver as moonlight. The styling of it doesn’t seem to sit right on his aged and tired face. Likewise, his narrowed eyes are blue in a way that’s evanescent with age. They make his gaze seem harder, haunting - the eyes of an assessing dictator and not the calculating eyes of a rebel. He’s paler too, likely from the lack of natural sunlight down here in Rapture.  
She stares after the rigid line of his back. As he walks he seems to carry himself the same, except he brings with him an infinite sadness that’s more tangible than Booker’s ever was. It’s as if the sadness is piloting or fuelling him, and bitter determination is the run-off.

Elizabeth knows, deep-down, that she should feel _something_ for him - some kind of sympathy or empathy, even curiosity at the very least. Instead she feels nothing except the desire to be rid of him as soon as possible.   
He’s nothing except a slap in the face - a cruel piece of bait that fate has thrown to her. He is a man that _could_ have been her father, but isn’t, cutting the familial thread all together. A man who answers to ‘Booker’, but is not. A man who glances at her, who ponders. A fresh start… but a fresh start wearing Comstock’s face.   
She supposes this is her punishment - some twisted personal hell. Her crime was hope, and now she has to bear the company of a concoction that’s half-protector and half-lifelong-jailer.

Comstock catches her eyes, and she looks away quickly, fixating on anything except his face.  
“ _Miss_?”  
“I’m all right…” She says bluntly, and it comes out much harder than she had meant to. “We’re just– not covering ground fast enough,”  
He grunts. Whether it’s in agreement or not she isn’t sure, she’s just glad he spares her another second of his voice.


End file.
